“Our farmers don’t take half kindly to enfranchising Hodge.”
“That’s because your farmer is only a step removed from Hodge. Intellectually, I should imagine there isn’t much difference between the farmer and the hind nor between the hind and his sheep.”
“Oh! come; we’re not so bad as that. Anyway, I tell you household suffrage for the counties is a bitter pill. Our clergy pull a sour face over it. It will take a lot of gilding to make it go down. I’m not sure I shall be returned, and I shall be the first Lindsay to be rejected since good old Noll’s days.”
“Oh! come to the West Riding and we’ll console you. We dearly love a lord.”
“Young Fitzwilliam didn’t find it so.”
“Ah! he was weighted by a banker.”
“But, seriously, do you think the people will be any better off when they get the vote?”
“That depends.”
“On how they use it? Not for revolution, I hope.”
“For reform, I hope. For revolution if they cannot get reform.”